The show with nine lives has an airdate for its latest season. Thirteen new episodes of the cult favourite Community are coming to Yahoo this spring — March 17, to be exact.

No word yet on whether this development portends the necessity of yet another streaming stick gadget to watch it on your actual television — among Roku, Firestick and ChromeCast, there ought to be something that works.

Anyhow, the sixth season is real, and it’s happening with the blessing of creator and executive producer Dan Harmon, who spoke before the Television Critics Association in Pasadena, Calif. Harmon has a uniquely strong connection with the show’s rabid, if comparatively tiny fandom, which is part of why the show seemed destined for a second life on the Internet when NBC cancelled it last year.

But as many times as Community has been on the chopping block for its meagre ratings, Harmon said he would just keep writing the show as long as there’s an audience to keep it going.

“I’m very naive about how the business actually works: these guys’ contracts, schedules and all those things,” Harmon said via the New York Daily News. “So I just stick with a very sixth grade mentality, which is that this show has lived by the sword of a very intimate relationship with fans and needs to die only by that sword. … So only when people stop watching would I ever stop wanting to make the product. I would never feel very comfortable walking away from any version of Communit that was existing. So I have to continue to write the show as if it’s going to last for 20 seasons.”

NBCJeff Winger and Dean Pelton? Like two peas in a Greendale pod.

It’s worth revisiting the words Harmon wrote on his Tumblr blog eight months ago, when Community fans were experiencing death drops in their stomachs over the show’s fate. At the time, it seemed likely the show would move to Hulu were it to have a second life. It was reported Harmon was less than enthusiatic about this, and he explained:

“If you want to know the God’s honest truth, part of my ‘eh’ was coming from the unsettling thought of your passion for campaigns being once again exploited by this rather unfair, somewhat backward system, one that now treats you like it’s your responsibility to keep a show alive, like a corporation is doing you a favour by feeding you low grade opiate through a regulated tube. Like you owe them an apology when they can’t measure or monetize you to their satisfaction. You deserve better. I love you guys, and at its best, Community is me saying that over and over again, saying let’s get less mad at ourselves and each other and more mad at the inhuman systems that keep us down and divided. ‘Maybe it should have said less of that and more jokes.’ Shut up, voice of my grade school principal that also coached and umpired softball because shrieking ‘steeeeeeerike’ at children was his sole recourse to virility.”

Talks with Hulu fell apart, and Yahoo Screen picked up the show. Unlike schedules for other popular online shows such as House of Cards (Netflix) or Transparent (Amazon Prime), which release all of their episodes at once, Community won’t be taking the binge-watching approach for Season 6. The first two episodes will be released together, and then they’ll be put out on a weekly schedule, just like broadcast television. While the show won’t be radically different, it will introduce two characters to fill the departures of Yvette Nicole Brown, who played Shirley, and Donald Glover, who played Troy.

Greendale loyalists already know Paget Brewster as Francesca Dart (and before that, as Debra Chambers). Keith David, who narrated an episode in 2012, will come back in bigger, more visible role.

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SAN DIEGO — Just because Community is going online to Yahoo doesn’t mean it’s in for a lot of changes.

In fact, creator Dan Harmon says he has “no big, highfalutin plans” for its Web version.

At a Comic-Con panel Thursday, Harmon revealed he doesn’t want season six to feel radically different, especially to its loyal fans.

Harmon doesn’t want season six to feel radically different

“My philosophy is [to] attempt to make the same show, and let the lack of boundaries make themselves felt … I don’t want to take the wheels off so much that people think, ’Well, this is just some new show.”’

He also admits he wavered about the idea of taking the show to the Internet.

Gillian Anderson recalls crying in her car when she thought Community was cancelled

He then asked himself, “Does it really matter where we’re doing this? I cannot be the one to not do this. Wherever this show is people will find it.”

Joel McHale says he “had no doubt it would be back,” adding he had no qualms going to the Web, “I was ready to do a regional theatre version of the show.”

Gillian Anderson recalls crying in her car when she thought Community was cancelled by NBC.

“I didn’t want to let go of the show because there are few times in your life when you get to work on something that is good, funny and as groundbreaking and heartwarming as this,” she said.

Sony Pictures Television and Yahoo struck a deal to make 13 episodes.

Harmon says writing doesn’t begin until the fall so season six shouldn’t begin until at least Christmas

The plan is to release one episode per week rather than all at once, like with Netflix’s original programming.

Community is about a group of misfit students at a Colorado community college.

BOSTON — Yahoo Inc reported the theft of some 400,000 user names and passwords to access websites including its own, saying that hackers had taken advantage of a security vulnerability in its computer systems.

The security firm Rapid7 said a data file published on the Web contained logins and cleartext passwords for Yahoo as well as several other Internet services, including Google Inc’s Gmail and AOL as well as Microsoft Corp’s Hotmail, MSN and Live sites.

“It’s way bigger than Yahoo,” said Rapid7 researcher Marcus Carey. “We can assume that tens of thousands of people on services outside of Yahoo could be compromised.”

Yahoo apologized for the breach in a written statement, responding to the latest piece of bad news for a company that has lost two chief executives in a year and is struggling to revive stalled revenue growth.

Chairman Alfred Amoroso acknowledged that Yahoo had experienced a “tumultuous” year at its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday morning. Interim CEO Ross Levinsohn told attendees he was optimistic about the company’s progress.

Yahoo spokeswoman Dana Lengkeek did not respond to a request asking her to identify the companies whose credentials were stolen. Officials with Google, AOL and Microsoft could not immediately be reached for comment.

Yahoo did not disclose how many passwords were valid or say how many of the stolen logins were for Yahoo’s sites.

Lengkeek said “an older file” had been stolen from Yahoo Contributor Network, an Internet publishing service that Yahoo purchased about two years ago. It helps writers, photographers and videographers to sell their work over the Web.

“We are fixing the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of this data, changing the passwords of the affected Yahoo! users and notifying the companies whose users accounts may have been compromised,” she said.

The theft follows a breach reported last month by the business networking service LinkedIn, which resulted in the release of some 6.4 million member passwords.

LONDON — Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it is investigating reports of a security breach that may have exposed nearly half a million users’ email addresses and passwords.

The company said it was looking into “claims of a compromise of Yahoo! user IDs” but did not disclose the size of the reported breach or how it may have happened. Yahoo’s Head of U.K. Consumer PR Caroline MacLeod-Smith said that she couldn’t immediately provide any more detail on the breach “as we are still investigating it.”

Technology news websites including CNET, Ars Technica, and Mashable cited hackers calling themselves the D33D Company as claiming responsibility for the attack, adding that data posted to the group’s website carried more than 453,000 login credentials from an unidentified Yahoo subdomain.

The little-known group was quoted as saying that they had stolen the passwords using an SQL injection — the name given to a commonly-used attack in which hackers use rogue commands to extract data from vulnerable websites.

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“We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call,” the group was quoted as saying.

A Ukraine-registered website associated with D33D Company appeared to be unreachable Thursday; an email address and a phone number attributed to the site’s registrant appeared to be invalid.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/yahoo-investigating-reports-of-nearly-half-a-million-compromised-passwords/feed/4stdThe Yahoo sign in Times Square is seen in this January 18, 2006 file photo in New York.iPhone beats out Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry and Casey Anthony as top search term of 2011: Yahoohttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/iphone-beats-out-kim-kardashian-katy-perry-and-casey-anthony-as-top-search-term-of-2011-yahoo
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Apple’s iPhone edged past major news events, celebrities and pop stars as the top searched term on the Web in 2011, according to Yahoo!

The digital media company said the smartphone proved more popular than reality television celebrity Kim Kardashian, pop star Katy Perry and singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, who placed in the top five.

American Casey Anthony, the woman acquitted of the murder of her young daughter after a highly publicized trial, was No. 2.

“This is the first time since 2002 that we have had a gadget at No.1, which is an iPhone.” Vera Chan, a Web trend analyst at Yahoo!, said in a conference call announcing the results of the review now in its 10th year.

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“Even though the product has been around for four years it just became such a major news story,” she added.

PlayStation2 topped the list in 2002.

Chan credited the iPhone with helping to facilitate political movements around the world and said the device embodied the vision of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs who died in October.

Women dominated the list, capturing six out of the top 10 spots. Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan made headlines for a brief stay in jail and court appearances for violating probation on drunken driving and theft charges captured the No. 6 spot.

Actress Jennifer Aniston, a first timer on the top 10 list along with Lopez, came in eighth.

In addition to the Casey Anthony trial, the Japan earthquake and Osama bin Laden who was killed in a U.S. assault in Pakistan earlier this year, were the only news stories to make the top 10.

“People don’t have to search for details they get in the news, and it is rare that a news story end up on the overall list,” said Chan.

Pop princess Britney Spears, who dominated the list in the top spot for four consecutive years, failed to make the list this year.

“American Idol,” which was the most search item in 2004, placed seventh.

The Yahoo! list is based on aggregated visitor activity on the network and billions of consumer searches.

TOKYO — The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the world’s first carbon-composite airliner, flew to Hong Kong from Tokyo carrying its first paying passengers on Wednesday in a flight that could set a new benchmark in air travel.

Its takeoff into clear blue skies after a salute and shower by an airport fire truck came exactly 53 years after Boeing’s first ever jetliner, the 707, began commercial services in the Pan Am colors.

LAURENT FIEVET/AFP/Getty ImagesPresident and CEO of All Nippon Airways (ANA) Shinichiro Ito (4th R), officials and ANA crew members pose with a lion dance troupe upon arriving on the first commercial flight of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner aircraft at Hong Kong International Airport on October 26, 2011

The Dreamliner does not fly any faster than that first aircraft, but it is not supposed to. Instead, it is designed to make the hours aloft more pleasant for passengers and cheaper to fly for owners battling for profit amid the rise of low cost carriers.

The Dreamliner that flew Wednesday with 240 passengers is owned by All Nippon Airways Co 9202.T and a jubilant Shinichiro Ito, the airline’s president and CEO, described his brand new plane as a “game changer.”

He acknowledged, however, that production hiccups that delayed delivery for three years had put his carrier “through hard times.”

Its cabin builders promise a flight with ambient lighting engineered to lull passengers to sleep. The cabin also boasts higher air pressure that will make the interior feel like 6,000 feet rather than the 8,000 feet on other jetliners.

Passengers on ANA’s jet were treated to shifting hues of color, including a rainbow display as the aircraft lifted off from the tarmac in Tokyo, its engines a gentle whistle. The quiet engines and greater cabin air pressure might create a new problem in air travel: making conversations of fellow passengers easy to hear.

KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty ImagesA passenger on the first Dreamliner flight

Its other bells and whistles include windows that are 30 percent bigger and which can be dimmed electronically, seat-to-seat e-mail, bidet-equipped lavatories with their own windows and bigger touchscreen entertainment panels.

Gino Bertuccio, an Italian cosmetic importer living in Miami, said he liked the windows, although he wondered how well they will work after wear and tear and curious children.

Bertuccio, who describes himself as an aviation enthusiast spent $30,000 in an auction to buy his ticket on the flight.

“I don’t have a wife that might say no,” he explained as the cabin dimmed to a mellow rainbow.

Boeing’s focus on making the 787 more comfortable and lighter also points to the reality that faster, gas-guzzling air travel is not the industry’s future.

The continuing squeeze on profits from budget carriers and soaring fuel costs have made the luxury of time-saving too rich for ANA and other airlines, and forced Boeing and European rival Airbus to adapt their products.

“For carriers with high operating margins, the 787 is critical for gaining a cost competitiveness,” said Masaharu Hirokane, an analyst at Nomura Holding in Tokyo. “For ANA to be a launch customer is a plus.”

The Dreamliner was originally conceived in 2001 as the “Sonic Cruiser,” designed for a bygone era of aviation that quickly morphed into one filled with bankruptcies. It was a design that promised the first serious speed increase since the advent of the now defunct Concorde.

Most jetliners cruise at around eight-tenths the speed of sound. The Sonic Cruiser promised mach 0.98, lopping hours off long-haul flights between Tokyo and New York. But back then oil was a third of the cost and as it began a climb to near $100 a barrel, Boeing and its airline customers changed course.

Thus was born the Dreamliner, its only link to the shelved Sonic Cruiser proposal being the use of carbon composites.

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LAURENT FIEVET/AFP/Getty ImagesThe pilots (L) of All Nippon Airways (ANA) disembark the first commercial flight of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner aircraft at Hong Kong International Airport on October 26, 2011

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JAPAN DOMINANCE

KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty ImagesEconomy class seats on board the first All Nippon Airways (ANA) Boeing 787 Dreamliner are displayed during a press preview at Tokyo's Haneda airport on September 28, 2011

The Dreamliner’s success or failure will depend much on Japan, the only major aviation market where Boeing clearly dominates its European rival.

More than a third of the Dreamliner is built by Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Fuji Heavy Industries.

Of Boeing’s Dreamliner backlog of 821 orders built up over the three years of delays, nearly a tenth of them are from Japan.

ANA’s Ito said on Wednesday his airline expects to have seven 787s by the end of the year, nine by the end of the business year in March 31 and 20 a year after that.

Boeing’s vice president in charge of the Dreamliner program, Scott Fancher, joined Ito on the first commercial flight and said his company was sticking to a target of building 10 of the aircraft a month by 2013.

“We are comfortable we have an executable plan,” he said, declining to say how many will be built by the end of the year.

He also demurred on the question of what Boeing would do with production slots for 24 Dreamliners cancelled by China Eastern Airlines on Oct. 17 because it was unable to wait for output to pick up.

Air New Zealand too voiced concerns over possible further delays last week. The carrier said it is seeking compensation from Boeing.

The plane builder on Sept. 26 said it expects to break even on the plane this decade. Boeing releases its latest earnings results in the United States on Wednesday.

ANA however, remains fiercely loyal. That enthusiasm may extend to a stretched version of the Dreamliner, the 787-10. While Boeing has yet to commit to a launch, the Japanese airline’s vice president, Keisuke Okada told Reuters on the flight “the dash 10 is very attractive for us.” ANA, he added, encouraged Boeing to go ahead with a launch.

Enthusiasm among other Japanese and other airlines for the Dreamliner has been undimmed by the delayed Dreamliner.

“Airlines are, if anything, even more keen to get their hands on the aircraft. The advanced technology used in the 787 means that, in spite of the delays, it is still ahead of its time,” said Paul Sheridan, head of risk advisory at aviation consultancy Ascend.

The 100 seats available to paying passengers on the flight Wednesday sold out as soon as they went on sale, with 25,505 people scrambling online for the scarce tickets priced at 78,700 yen. A pair of tickets that ANA offered on the Yahoo auction site for charity sold for 890,000 yen ($11,693.601).

Tsuneko Hayashi, from Tokyo, was one of the few who got a ticket.

“It’s light so it might flip over in the wind,” she quipped as she waited to board the plane as ANA’s Ito and Boeing’s Fancher prepared to crack open a sake cask with wooden hammers to toast the flight. “I am really interested in it,” she added.

The aircraft made it safely to Hong Kong where it was greeted by another fire engine shower, drums and dancing lions.

REUTERS/Toru HanaiThe cockpit of All Nippon Airways' (ANA) first Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft is seen after the aircraft landed at Haneda airport in Tokyo September 28, 2011

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